High Power microwave and radio frequency networks are used to provide energy for heating, curing, sterilizing, cooking, medical imaging, medical therapy, plasma generating, and other processing of substrates or treated media. The goal for such processing is to optimize the process. This processing can include multiple locations for a single generator, thus requiring some sort of power division. This typically means utilizing the minimum amount of energy to completely process two or more substrates from a single electromagnetic source in an efficient manner while, at the same time, greatly enhancing the quality and yield of the final product. The applications are primarily high power microwave and/or radio frequency energy utilization including the engineered wood industry, the food service industry, medical applications, heating and processing of manufactured products such as composite material production, the hydrogenation of petroleum products for octane boosting, plasma systems for the electronics industry as well as others.
In a typical device, an electromagnetic generator is located at a differing location in respect to a waveguide from its load. The waveguide itself can have a rectangular, circular, or other cross section, the section of which is dependent on the system design and desired mode or electromagnetic field map within the system, network or component.
Power division and/or power divider networks and systems are used to split portions of high energy signals that are supplied by the electromagnetic generators for application to several different parts, portions or locations within a system using electromagnetic energy for processing, depending on the requirements of the process. Depending on the specific requirements of the process, the power division ratios are or need to be set and/or adjusted according to these requirements. The power divider itself is selected in consideration of the waveguide and mode.
In the power divider networks of prior design, the power division ratio is permanently set by mechanically positioning an inductive and/or capacitive structure in the network such that the impedances of each of the multiple output ports, as seen from the perspective of the electrical center of the network, achieve the desired power division ratio. The power division ratios would thus be set permanently during the manufacturing process. This design has the disadvantage that, once it is set (typically in the measurement laboratory), the power division ratio can not be easily altered. This is especially so during operation of the device. Indeed, one of the only practical methods of altering or adjusting the power division ratio(s) is to actually physically remove the junction power divider network from a system where the power division ratio is a necessary parameter, and installing a completely new and different power divider with a different power division ratio.